Biosphere
When starting a new world, you may choose to play using either biosphere or the much simpler biomass. New players are recommended to use biomass to get the hang of the rest of the game first before attempting biospheres. Your planet turns greener as the 'support' number of terrestrial plant life increases. Aquatic life, micro-organism support and animal support have no effect on your planet's appearance. Terrestrial plant support is also necessary for a planet's habitability for humans. Technically, you don't ever need to create aquatic biospheres, since they don't have any effect on habitability or your world's appearance. Species can however be used to generate revenue, depending on the genetic traits you give them. When playing with the Biospheres feature, your population does not consume biomass and is also not calculated into the 'support' metrics. Starting a Biosphere You can start creating biospheres for your planet after you've met all the temperature, pressure, oxygen and water requirements for plant life, and built buildings that support aquatic or terrestrial species. You start a biosphere (either aquatic or terrestrial) by introducing a species of micro-organism. You decide this organism's phylum and genetic traits. Each phylum and trait has benefits and drawbacks. You can repeat the same traits in one single organism. For example, you can have an organism that has the beautiful trait three times, and it will have three times the benefits and three times the drawbacks of that trait. You cannot have two species with the exact same phylum and genetic traits on the same world. After you introduce your first micro-organisms, you wait for them to reproduce until they offer enough support for the next layer of your biosphere, algae (aquatic) or plants (terrestrial). Creating plant or algae species works similarly to creating micro-organism species, but the phyla you can choose are different, and you can choose some different traits. Your plants or algae will need sufficient amounts of micro-organisms to already be present in order to survive. The amount they need is represented by 'support.' Similarly, herbivores will need sufficient amounts of plant life to be present, and carnivores need sufficient amounts of herbivores to eat. Strategy Tips * It's smart to make your first micro-organisms of each phylum have the large trait three times, because that way it will offer a lot of support. Micro-organisms themselves don't need any support, so there is no drawback to this. * If your world is relatively stable, giving an organism the delicate trait a couple of times can generate a lot of revenue. * If you're looking for long-term stability, a viable strategy is to avoid herbivore and carnivore species entirely, as their oxygen decreases will constantly be in flux with the plant increases. Since only plant support is needed for paradise, you can offset your plant oxygen with facilities and avoid the complexity that animals add. Health Each species has a specific health value, which is calculated based on a couple of variables. *The first such variable is how well the species is adapted to the environment. A species that you've made vulnerable to droughts will for example do less well on a planet with low water levels. *The second variable is how much food (support) is available for it compared to how much it needs (this is irrelevant for micro-organisms). *The third variable is Conservation. You can choose to spend credits to either help a species gain or lose health, conserve it or cull (kill) it. *The fourth variable is random biosphere events. Sometimes a Harsh Winter or a Favorable Summer will decrease or increase a species health temporarily. Poaching can even decrease a species' health permanently, while having the species become a Popular Pet increases health permanently. The game calls this type of reduction or increase a 'modifier.' *The fifth variable is how many predators a species has. A species is not only affected by the species 'underneath' it (like a plant is 'underneath' a herbivore, and a herbivore is 'underneath' a carnivore), but also by the species above it. A particularly favorable summer for a carnivore species can mean they will eat all your herbivores and destroy your entire ecosystem if you don't monitor them closely and cull when necessary. When you first introduce a species, it has two health values, a low one, and a high one, with an arrow between them. The first one is your species' current health, and the one after the arrow is your species' projected health. Your species will move towards that health value over time. Species with increased or decreased birth rates move towards that value quicker or slower. It's okay if you have species that have overpopulated health stats. That just means they will provide a lot of support for their predators. Give them some predators. Oxygen A world that uses Biospheres is more difficult to perfectly balance than one that uses biomass, since plants, algae and micro-organisms produce oxygen and some animal species use oxygen up, and a species' health score affects how much oxygen it produces or uses. Species' health can be very volatile. All plants and algae will do photosynthesis and produce oxygen, but some traits will make them produce more or less oxygen. If anyone understands why some, but not all, animal species use up oxygen, please edit that info in here. Some animal species not using oxygen may reflect the discovery of some multi-cellular organisms in the brine of the Mediterranean Sea in 2010 that utilize hydrogenosomes in place of mitochondria, which provide a similar function in anaerobic environments. Tardigrades and other microspecies that are still technically multicellular animals are also able to survive in oxygen-free environments. There is also a subset of multicellular life called facultative anaerobes who use oxygen when available, but switch to anaerobic respiration when oxygen is not available. Another possibility is the concept of oxygen-neutral organisms, which draw oxygen from the environment, but not directly from the air. By the game's concepts, these creatures would effectively be 0 because they don't utilize atmospheric oxygen, which is what the game measures. Native Species Sometimes a world already has species when you arrive. Native species have a purple icon, while species you introduced have blue icons. Species introduced by the Mutation event will automatically be named native / mutant / variant + name they mutated from, but their icon will be blue, not purple, so they are native in name only. Biosphere Events :Main article: Biosphere/Events Phyla and Traits All information, including effects and genes, on all Phyla and Traits can be found here: :Main article: Phyla and Traits : Buildings When you disable buildings that provide space for healthy species, the species don't lose any health, but you can't introduce new species. Category:Terraforming Category:Content Category:Biospheres